1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an orientation measuring device for determining the spatial orientation of, for example, rolls, bars, hollow or solid cylinders, etc., ranging from small to large diameters.
2. Description of Related Art
As disclosed in commonly owned, co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/077,887, based on published International Patent Application PCT/EP96/00623, an orientation measuring device of the type to which the present invention is directed is very useful for precisely determining an actual spatial orientation of a cylinder, or roll of a printing or paper making machine, or the like. The usefulness of such devices relates to the following: in order to align a plurality of such cylinders in parallel, use of a set of two spirit levels or the like will be insufficient; however, such levels cannot determine an angular orientation regarding a yaw direction. Due to the extremely high precision of laser optic gyroscopic orientation measuring devices, performing alignment of such cylinders can be performed with very high accuracy, and also in an astounding minimum of time, as compared to techniques formerly applied. In order to perform an alignment task on cylinders of the mentioned kind, according to former art, it is convenient to attach a precision tooled mechanical prism (of the concave type) to the orientation measuring devices. Using such a combination of instrument and prism, it is possible to perform a direction determining measurement by just contacting the prism to the cylindrical surface of the roll. However, this arrangement renders such devices useful for only a limited range of diameters of rolls to be checked or aligned.
Thus, the problem to be solved by the present invention is to create a device that will allow precise checking of the orientation of rolls, cylinders, hollow bores, and similar cylindrical objects, for a significantly enlarged range of diameters, as compared to the former state of the art.
This problem is solved, according to the present invention, by providing an orientation measuring device that comprises a plurality of orientation sensing means, at least one of which is a gyroscope (preferably a laseroptical gyroscope with an electronic output), a housing with side walls, preferably having a block shape with surfaces perpendicularly orientated towards each other which have a least three slots or indentations of precision tooled surface quality for receiving two adapting bodies, and precision tooled adapting bodies which are temporarily insertable into such slots or indentations, the adapting bodies preferably being of cylindrical shape.
Useful refinements of the invention include the adapting bodies having a polygonal cross section, the adapting bodies being removably fastened to the housing by permanent magnetic means, the housing being made from at least one of the group of stainless steels and glassy or ceramic substances having nearly zero coefficient of thermal expansion, examples of suitable glassy or ceramic substances being materials such as quartz glass, Ceran(copyright), Zerodur(copyright), Jena(copyright) glass, Pyrex(copyright) glass. Still further refinements include the housing of the orientation measuring device having at least one surface machined to be planar to a very high degree of precision, and/or is provided with at least one anchoring site for attaching a handle. Additionally, the orientation sensor according to the invention can be provided with an optical beam generating device capable of producing a light beam of essentially constant cross section, the direction of which light beam is parallel to two sides of the housing.
The invention is explained in more detail below with reference to the drawings which show one embodiment in accordance with the present invention.